HAND. LINE. COD.

In the coldest waters surrounding Newfoundland's rugged Fogo Island, "people of the fish"—traditional fishers—catch cod live by hand, one at a time, by hook and line. After a 20-year moratorium on North Atlantic cod, the stocks are returning. These fishers are leading a revolution in sustainability, taking their premium product directly to the commercial market for the first time. Travel with them from the early morning hours, spend time on the ocean, and witness the intricacies of a 500-year-old tradition that's making a comeback.

Rock School

It is about a music school in Philadelphia, The Paul Green School of Rock Music, run by Paul Green that teaches kids ages 9 to 17 how to play rock music and be rock stars. Paul Green teaches his students how to play music such as Black Sabbath and Frank Zappa better than anyone expects them to by using a unique style of teaching that includes getting very angry and acting childish.

The Hobart Shakespeareans

Rafe Esquith, 1992 American Teacher of the Year and National Medal of Arts recipient, teaches 5th-grade children whose parents don't speak English at a school in a dangerous, poor, drug-infested 100% Latino/Asian neighborhood in Los Angeles.

The Man of a Thousand Songs

A feature length documentary about extraordinary Canadian singer songwriter, Ron Hynes... an insightful and entertaining exploration of the creative process, the genesis of song, the meaning of performance and the vulnerability of an artist compelled to bare his soul through his music. The film is comprised of Ron performing his music (distinct and live for the camera), interwoven with very intimate black box 'interviews' with Ron (shot tightly and directly addressed to the camera), in which he discusses the songs and the life that informed them: late nights, dark alleys, marriage, children, divorce, his near death and recovery from drug addiction... and punctuated with back stage moments, insight from the street, and Ron's nephew author Joel Thomas Hynes, taking the role of 'chorus of the people'.

Eye of the Storm

A documentary about Nain, a Labrador Inuit community located near the world's largest nickel and copper deposits. As commercial mining interests prepare to exploit the resources, local residents consider the potential environmental and cultural impact. Meanwhile longstanding Aboriginal land claims are unsettled.

Elementary

In the Makarenko public elementary school in the Paris outskirts, children want to learn and to be cheered while teachers know they do not only teach, they also educate. With care, tenacity and efforts, children are trained to become not only responsible citizens but also human beings.

The Eye of the Storm

The very first documentary about Jane Elliott's educational experiment about discrimination, which was originally produced for ABC News, in which she conducts an unforgettable lesson with her third-grade class in Riceville, Iowa.

Rise Above the Mark

The purpose of Rise Above the Mark, narrated by Peter Coyote, is to educate the general public about the “corporate takeover” of Indiana public schools and what parents, community members and educators can do to protect their local public schools. Legislators are calling the shots and putting public schools in an ever-shrinking box. WLCSC Board of School Trustees and Superintendent of Schools, Rocky Killion, want to secure resources and legislative relief necessary to achieve the school district’s mission of creating a world-class educational system for all children. The school district’s strategic plan will introduce a model of education that puts decision making back into the hands of local communities and public school teachers, rather than leaving it in the hands of legislators and ultimately lining the pockets of corporations.

Handcrafted Hopedale

If you want to find world-class artisans, the small northern Labrador community of Hopedale offers you some of the best. Created through the St. John's International Women's Film Festival's FRAMED film education series, in partnership with the Nunatsiavut government, this film focuses on three prominent local craftspeople- two carvers and one traditional sewist.

Portraits and Dreams

Revisit photographs created by Kentucky school children in the 1970s and the place where their photos were made. Photographer and artist Wendy Ewald, who guided the students in making their visionary photographs, returns to Kentucky and learns how the lives and visions of her former students have changed.

It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School

Depicts what happens when students K-8 discuss LGBT-related topics in age-appropriate ways. Shot in six public and private schools (in San Francisco and New York City, as well as Madison, Wisconsin, and Cambridge, Massachusetts), It’s Elementary models excellent teaching about family diversity, name-calling, stereotypes, community building, and more.

Les petits géants

Vistas: Red Ochre

Combining archival photos with new and found footage, this short film presents a personal, impressionistic rendering of what it's like growing up Mi'kmaq in Newfoundland, while living in a culture of denial. Vistas is a series of 13 short films on nationhood from 13 Indigenous filmmakers from Halifax to Vancouver. It was a collaborative project between the NFB and APTN to bring Indigenous perspectives and stories to an international audience.

Children in the Classroom

A short documentary about the behaviour of Japanese primary school students.

Teach Me If You Can

The three teachers Svetlana, Sandrine and Taslima teach children and young people in places that are hardly accessible for “normal” lessons - in a nomad tent under the snow cover of Siberia, in a hut in the bushland of Burkina Faso and on a school boat in Bangladesh. They share a common goal: to enable their students to have a better future through education.

Classroom 8

From his modest apartment in Lima, a teacher gives virtual classes, seeking to reflect with his young students with low socio-economic backgrounds on racism, politics and inequality: issues that resonate in an increasingly fractured country.

Hospital City

As debate in Canada and the world rages over health care, Hospital City offers a moving, human portrait of the people whom the issues touch most closely.

A Quiet Girl

Adopted Montreal filmmaker Adrian Wills discovers, on camera and in real time, the startling truths of his complex beginnings in Newfoundland. Shocking details drive Wills to the core of his birth mother’s resilience, and ultimately his own. In this moving feature documentary that combines 16mm footage and contemporary images with deeply personal conversations, Wills’ voyage transforms from an urgent search for identity into a quest to give a quiet girl her voice.

Billy Crane Moves Away

This short documentary features Newfoundland fisherman Billy Crane, who speaks frankly on the state of the inshore fishery and how the lack of government support has contributed to the industry’s downfall. He is being forced to leave home to seek employment in Toronto. This film was made with the Challenge for Change program.

Regarding Our Father

Gerald S. Doyle was one of the first collectors of Newfoundland folk songs. He was also an avid cinematographer who left a collection of 12 hours of colour film, shot in outport Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1930's, 40's, and 50's.